Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Offsite Post: ‘Land and Southern Culture’

 

Mr. Mark Atkins’s essay of 26 Sept. 2023, ‘What Is the South?  What Is Dixie?,’ contains many fine passages, which is not unusual for things written by him.  There is one that is cause for concern, however:


And from the People’s struggle to survive on their Land is born their way of life or culture. That collection of habits, customs, mores, traditions, patterns, ways, means, assumptions, notions, and inclinations that answer most of the People’s questions. Culture is the People’s autopilot, their great security blanket. The wheel that need not be re-invented. It is this culture, born of the People’s struggle with their land, that sustains them over the generations, possibly centuries.

The land is undoubtedly an important factor in defining Southernness, but this passage makes something more of it than it ought to.  The land in this telling has been transformed into some kind of dark, brooding deity that we must struggle with to receive a blessing, and along with the blessing, wounds.  Mr. Atkins has retold the story of Jacob wrestling with God, replacing Jacob with Dixie and God with Land:


And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then he said, "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Tell me, I pray, your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him (Genesis 32:24-9).

Further, it is ultimately not something external that we struggle with (the land), but something internal, sin.  That is to say, the sins of men and women are the cause of the rebellion of the creation against mankind.  When sinfulness is quelled in man, then harmony between them is restored.  There are numerous instances of this throughout Church history in the lives of her saints.  We will look at only a couple, for the sake of brevity, from the life of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (+687) by another English saint, St. Bede of Wearmouth-Jarrow Monastery (+735).  In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, St. Bede writes,


 . . . upon his arrival the wicked spirits withdrew. When he had there, after expelling the enemies, with the assistance of the brethren, built himself a small dwelling, with a trench about it, and the necessary cells and an oratory, he ordered the brothers to dig a pit in the floor of the dwelling, although the ground was hard and stony, and no hopes appeared of any spring. Having done this upon the faith and at the request of the servant of God, the next day it appeared full of water ' and to this day affords plenty of its heavenly bounty to all that resort thither. He also desired that all instruments for husbandry might be brought him, and some wheat; and having sown the same at the proper season, neither stalk, nor so much as a leaf, sprouted from it by the next summer. Hereupon the brethren visiting him according to custom, he ordered barley to be brought him, in case it were either the nature of the soil, or the Divine will, that such grain should rather grow there. He sowed it in the same field just as it was brought him, after the proper time of sowing, and consequently without any likelihood of its coming to good; but a plentiful crop immediately came up, and afforded the man of God the means which he had so ardently desired of supporting himself by his own labour (Book IV, Chapter XXVIII).

Now, supposing a land full of Christian holiness in which there is little struggle with the land, would that people be bereft of a rich culture because of that absence?  Certainly not!  But what would be the source of culture in such a place?  Just what it has been in every other place – the religion of the people, the Christian Faith.

The country of Georgia, which we have mentioned before in some past essays, is a wonderful testimony to the culture-building nature of Christianity.  Georgia was baptized into the Orthodox Church under the holy King Mirian in the 4th century, about the year 324 A. D.; she has not departed from the Church despite numerous brutal assaults upon her by the enemies of Christ.  During St. Mirian’s reign, we see a Christian culture in its early formation:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.reckonin.com/walt-garlington/land-and-southern-culture.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Friday, January 26, 2024

Offsite Post: ‘Teachers (and Students) Behaving Badly’

 

It is widely accepted that the education system isn’t doing such a great job in Louisiana, but some of the recent news stories about it are truly alarming.

From KNOE:

 

On Friday, September 29, a third-grade teacher at Columbia Elementary School in Caldwell Parish was arrested and charged with negligent injury after throwing a chair at a 9-year-old student. According to the arrest warrant, Lexes Boyde was teaching her third-grade class when one student asked to go to the office. Boyde said she thought the student was trying to get out of doing their work, and claims that she “lost it”. Boyde told deputies on scene that she slammed her hand down on the table that she and the child were sitting at. The arrest warrant states that Boyde threw a chair that hit a 9-year-old in the head causing them to get 8 staples.

From Louisiana Radio Network:

 

33-year-old Morgan Freche, a former Tangipahoa Parish teacher, faces third-degree rape charges in connection with an alleged sexual relationship with a now 17-year-old student. A police report alleges the student fathered Freche’s child.  Legal analyst Franz Borghardt said even if the sexual relationship was consensual, it’s still considered rape.

What is the answer of the officials in charge of these schools to moral failures of this magnitude?  How do they intend to put right what has gone so badly wrong?

The Caldwell Parish School District responded with this:

 

We are aware of the arrest of one of our teachers in connection with an injury sustained by a student at Columbia Elementary School. Although personnel and student matters are confidential and the specifics of such matters may not be discussed, student safety and the proper conduct of school district employees are a priority. The children attending Caldwell Parish Schools are instructed by professionals, and allegations of this nature are disheartening. We are reviewing the matter internally in order that it may be properly addressed and are cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation of this matter at this time.

Tangipahoa School Superintendent Melissa Stilley responded with this:

 

We have just learned of the arrest of former Tangipahoa Parish teacher, Morgan Freche. Although personnel and student matters are confidential and the specifics of such matters may not be discussed, student safety and the proper conduct of school district employees are a priority. Neither the Board nor this office will tolerate employee behavior which crosses the line in areas such as the proper professional relationships between educators and their students. We are fortunate that the children of Tangipahoa Parish are instructed by professionals, and allegations of this nature are unfortunate. We are cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation of this matter at this time.

The upshot of both is that instilling ‘professionalism’ in teachers will make everything dandy in their schools.

It will not.

There is something that will drive away these evils, but these school officials, and most other government officials in Louisiana from school boards to the Governor’s Mansion, seem afraid to name it:  Christianity.

If there is faithfulness and love towards God, if there is constant remembrance of God, lawlessness in adults and children is much less likely to arise.  A holy man we have mentioned before, St. Dimitri of Rostov, a native of the Ukraine, explains it this way:

 

2. In Paradise, to do and to keep was the first commandment given Adam, that is, to do with the mind2 in order to comprehend well, and to keep the commandment so as not to break it. But since he did not do with mindfulness, he did not keep the commandments, and because he did not practice mental action above all else, unbelief arose in Adam – disbelief in God, Who spoke and commanded; then from unbelief were born disobedience and transgression; from the transgression came the falling away from the Lord’s grace and estrangement from His Divine love.

 

3. If Adam had comprehend the Benefactor and reflected upon the commandment, and if he had believed, he would not have disobeyed the commandment; nor would he have eaten of the forbidden tree and been cast out of Paradise, and fallen into death and corruption . . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2023/10/garlington-teachers-and-students-behaving-badly/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Offsite Post: ‘The Kinsman-Redeemer of the South: St. Alfred as Dixie’s Patron Saint’

 

‘And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him . . .’ (Leviticus 25:47-49, King James Version (KJV) of The Holy Bible).


‘And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen’ (Ruth 2:20, KJV of The Holy Bible).


‘And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.  And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age . . .’ (Ruth 4:14, 15, KJV of The Holy Bible).

I. The Family and the Nation

A nation is more than an outward union of individuals, tied together superficially by a political or economic system or ideal.  A nation is a family - an extended family, but a family nevertheless:  ‘The family is older than the State. Man, husband, wife, father, son, mother, daughter and the obligations and virtues inherent in these names existed before the family grew into the nation and the State was formed. That is why family life in relation to State life can be figuratively depicted as the root of the tree’ (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, Sochinenia (Works), 1848 ed., vol. 2, p. 169; quoted in Vladimir Moss, Autocracy, Despotism and Democracy: Part I, 2012, p. 12).

From the divinely established duties and hierarchies of family life come not democracies and republics resting on mythical Lockean contracts but monarchies, i.e., patriarchal societies.  Metropolitan Philaret continues, ‘ . . . from the pure elements of family there should arise similarly pure principles of State life, so that with veneration for one’s father veneration for the tsar [king - W.G.] should be born and grow, and that the love of children for their mother should be a preparation of love for the fatherland, and the simple-hearted obedience of domestics [children - W.G.] should prepare and direct the way to self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness in obedience to the laws and sacred authority of the autocrat…’ (Sochinenia (Works), 1848 ed., vol. 2, p. 169; quoted in Moss, p.12).

‘Again, Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov wrote: “In blessed Russia, in accordance with the spirit of the pious people, the Tsar and the fatherland constitute one whole, just as in a family the parents and their children constitute one whole’ (Sobranie Pisem (Collected Letters), Moscow, 2000, p. 781; quoted in Moss, p.13).

Louis de Bonald, summing up Bishop Bossuet’s views, goes into more detail of this development of family into kingdom:  ‘Mankind descended from a first family.  Families multiply themselves, are held together by descent and by community of locale and needs, and form tribes in which an elder, under the modest title of judge, settles differences, unites the wills, and directs the powers.  Tribes, eventually joined together through alliances, treaties, and sometimes by conquest, become nations.  In this final stage of society, monarchical government arises as the only government that can preserve the tribes and that retains in this last development of the social body all the independence of the paternal power that existed at the beginning’ (‘On Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux’, Critics of the Enlightenment, 2004, p. 54).

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn adds, ‘Now we have to look at political institutions from the point of view of cultural harmony.  Since the patriarchal relationship dominates in the theological, ecclesiastic and biological sphere, it is psychologically not easy to organize political life along egalitarian and “numeralistic” lines.  . . . there is in our psyche the active and passive desire for “fatherhood”’ (Liberty or Equality, 1993, pgs. 139-40).  Hence, the importance of a king to a nation.

Such thoughts were deeply embedded in the South from her beginnings, being founded by Royalists (king-friends) and admirers of Sir Robert Filmer’s thoughts on the hierarchical family and patriarchy (David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed, 1989, pgs. 212, 274, 279-80).  We will see the importance of recognizing the paternal order of the family and the nation momentarily. 

II. ‘What Is a Nation?’

Though some, perhaps many, will try to deny it, the South is a distinct nation, a separate member in the body of humanity.  Following the definition of the Slavophile Vladimir Osipov, we see that this is undoubtedly true:  ‘What is a nation?  Faith, blood, language and the land’ (Quote from P. Walters, ‘A New Creed for Russians?’, Religion in Communist Lands, vol. 3, no. 4, 1976; quoted in Vladimir Moss, Twelve Lectures on the Theology of Politics, 2009, p. 102).

Her bent towards traditional Christianity; her origins from the people of the old West Saxon (Wessex) English realm; her Old English speechways; and the influence of the weather and land of the southeastern area of North America on the Southern people - all these mark the South as a true nation.

The United States Empire, by contrast, has been merely a mechanical assemblage of such authentic nation-regions (the South, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, Hawai’i, Alaska, etc.) held together by force, their true cultures suppressed by Washington, D.C. - or, rather, those who control its institutions.

 . . .

The rest is at https://identitydixie.com/2023/10/09/the-kinsman-redeemer-of-the-south-st-alfred-as-dixies-patron-saint/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Friday, January 19, 2024

Offsite Post: ‘Stalwart Crispina’

 

Saint Crispina,

Before the Roman judge.

Saint Crispina,

From Christ her God

She would not budge.

 

Condemned to die,

Her God she blessed.

Condemned to die,

Before the blade

She stretched her neck.

 

New tyrants arise,

The Faith they threaten.

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/stalwart-crispina/.

***

An account of St Crispina’s life may be read here:

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2024/12/05/149032-saint-crispina

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!